


rebuild, recover, reignite

by beautifullights



Series: everyone has scars [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/F, Flashbacks, Gen, Handcuffs, Hurt Poe Dameron, M/M, Meditation, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Mind Rape, Nightmares, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifullights/pseuds/beautifullights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only thing more painful than torture is betrayal. The only thing more difficult than betrayal is forgiveness. And the only thing more powerful than forgiveness is fighting back against fear—one small step at a time.</p><p>Why? Because he's Poe Dameron, that's why. Best pilot in the Resistance. And he’ll be damned if he gives in without a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to breathe in hyperspace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, friends! This will make a bit more sense if you read [and then the ground fell out from beneath my feet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5709895/chapters/13154137) first, but do as ye please.

The woods are cool, green, dark, quiet. Poe closes his eyes for a moment, tries to imagine himself back home. He trips over a root and swears, the moment is broken, the woods don’t even smell right, anyway. His feet sink deep into damp brown earth with each step.

Finally he reaches the clearing. Rey looks back over her shoulder with a smile when his foot crunches over a particularly loud branch. “Hey, Poe.”

“Hey.” Poe stops for a moment, sighs. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Do what?” She swivels her body to face him, still cross-legged on the ground.

“Pretend you’re surprised to see me. You sensed me what, when I was on that last hill? When I first entered the woods?”

Rey’s face wavers. She looks into her lap. “Yeah, yeah. I did.”

“When?”

Rey’s eyes flick up to his, then down. “When you left the base,” she admits, voice soft.

Poe puts a hand to his stomach, not sure if he has actually been punched in the gut or just feels like he has. He clears his throat, tries for a normal tone of voice. “I— didn’t realize your range goes that far. That’s what, three miles?”

Rey nods. She looks up again, watches Poe’s eyes, gauges his reaction. “It’s not that far with most people. Just— with people I care about. Finn. You. Leia. Luke.” She smiles suddenly. “Chewie.”

“You felt Finn wake up.”

Rey nods again. “If it’s a particularly strong emotion, I can feel it from much further away. Leia says she felt Han die, and Luke talked once about feeling Han and Leia in pain.” She leans back, face serious as ever, chin raised. “Why are you asking, Poe? Why did you come out here?”

Poe looks around the small boulder-strewn clearing, avoids the question. “What are you doing out here?”

She shrugs. “Meditating.”

“Were you practicing? I heard you talking with Finn about lifting rocks.”

“Yeah. I was.”

Poe suddenly sees the boulders in a new light. They rest solidly on the ground, but a rim of freshly overturned earth shows where they have been put down in slightly different locations than they started at. He is not going to think about it. He says instead, “You set them down before I came up here.”

“Yes.” Rey’s always been straightforward with him, certain major recent events notwithstanding. He appreciates that about her.

Poe links his hands behind his head, surveys the canopy above them, sits down opposite her before he loses his nerve. Rey holds his gaze, direct and serene.

“Finn’s upset that—”

“That it’s hard for you to look me in the eye?”

Poe rubs the back of his neck, ashamed. “Yeah. And that things are broken between us. And that I— that I can’t sleep.” His eyes are suddenly burning. He blinks to clear them, tries to hold himself together, but it comes out anyway. “I haven’t slept through the night since I left for Jakku.”

She waits a moment, lets him breathe. “He came to me too. He’s worried for you. He wants me to try to fix it.”

Poe buries his face in his hands. “Nerf-herding meddler,” he mutters through his fingers.

Rey laughs. “He loves you.”

He does. Which is why Poe is here, ignoring the panic whirring up his spine like a TIE-fighter engine.

“And at any rate,” Poe continues briskly, “it’s a dangerous weakness for me to be incapacitated by panic when captured. If it happens again, I need to be prepared.”

Rey nods. “Luke talked with me about how to go about it.”

Poe blinks. “He— what?”

“He knew you’d want to try to work on it, eventually. He thought you were more likely to go to Leia, or even him, rather than me, but he wanted me to have an idea of what we could do. How to work through it.”

“How did he know that I’d want to work on it?” His voice flattens into a hard line.

“ _Poe_. We’re never going to go into your mind. You know that. It doesn’t take the Force to see that Jedi things scare you moof-milked, or that you pride yourself on your fearlessness. I thought there was an equal chance that you would never speak to me again and that you would ask me to help you work through your panic.” A sudden smile brightens her face. “I’m very glad that it’s the latter. I would have missed you.”

“I’ve never really understood why you like me.” He’s never understood why he’s so honest around her, either, but he’s pretty sure it’s her directness, not the Force, that trips his mouth open.

Rey’s eyes are dark and serious. “You saved the life of the first person who ever treated me like a human, not a scavenger. I’ll always be in your debt.”

Poe nods, straightens his back, squares his shoulders. “Time to start repaying it, then,” he grins.

Rey ignores his bravado, as always. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? There’s no rush.” Her body is still, erect, patient.

“If I don’t do it now, I never will,” Poe answers. “So. How does this work?”

Rey takes a deep breath. “It’ll be a long process.”

 

Poe spreads his hands on his knees, palms down. He stills his mind, quiets his breathing. He does this every morning, before every battle. So does the rest of his squadron, if they want to keep their positions. A clear head is crucial for pilots.

The only difference this time is that Rey is sitting next to him, breath quiet in her throat, power hidden in her bones. Poe’s breath hitches; deliberately he clears his mind again. Stars blur past his eyes in the peaceful silence of hyperspace.

They sit for minutes, an hour, he’s not quite sure. He loses himself in the vast expanses of his mind, of the galaxy. He listens to the slow echo of his heartbeat. He flips one palm up to face the sky.

He can _feel_ Rey beside him. “It’ll feel like I’m standing outside your room,” she’d said. “Like you know I’m there, and you can hear me breathing, but the door’s still shut and locked.” Shivers of unease thread through his body. He can see the panic lurking, deep in his bones. Rey’s presence is simply _there,_ watching, waiting. She’s not coming in, but she’s still just _there,_ and it’s a particular kind of _there_ that sets every nerve on edge, and he can hear his breathing coming faster, and he tries to sink back into the stars but she’s still _there,_ right next to him, outside his fragile room, and the truth is that if she wanted to open that door, he would have no way to stop her, because she wields the Force and he does not, he is powerless and helpless and trapped in a chair and—

She pulls her presence away. He can feel that too, the intense relief of emptiness in his head, the way he still can’t breathe. “Poe. Poe. You’re in the woods. You’re on—”

He waves a hand at her. “Yeah, yeah.” He presses a hand to his sweating face, forces himself to focus. Reality, Poe. That’s what this is about. Reality, not panic.

Finally he opens his eyes. “How did you know that I was panicking?”

She looks at him like he is a moof-milker. Ok, he is, but still. “You were starting to hyperventilate, your hands were shaking, you were sweating like a dewback, you—”

“But you could feel it, too.” It’s not really a question.

Rey nods. Poe stares at his hands.

“Like I said, you don’t have to do this today, or even at all. Luke thought it would probably take a week of just meditating together before you were ready for me to even touch the Force. We’re going at your pace, all right? We can go as slow as you want.”

Poe snorts, despite himself. “That’s what I said to Finn when—”

Rey’s hands are over her ears. “I really don’t think I need to hear the end of that sentence.”

Poe grins lasciviously. “That depends.”

“Well, I hope you also told him that it’s ok not to do anything at all. That it’s perfectly ok to stop right here.”

Poe is serious again. “I did. And I hear you. But I’d like to try again now.”

Rey takes his measure with serious dark eyes. “You’re sure you’re up for this.”

Poe nods.

Rey closes her eyes, then opens them again. “I don’t think the hand signal worked very well. If you don’t signal me, should I just pull out when I feel you start to panic?”

Poe sighs. “Yeah, that’s probably best. But give me a few moments before you do, ok? I want to see if I can calm down from it while you’re still there.”

“I can do that.” Rey waits for him.

Poe closes his eyes. Rey follows suit. He slides back into the glittering darkness of outer space, tunes his breath to the sound of an engine vibrating through his core. He flips his palm up to the sky.

She’s _there_ again, but it’s less of a shock this time. He distracts himself by counting stars, knowing she is in the co-pilot’s seat (and he’s always hated flying ships with co-pilots), but knowing also that he does not have to turn and look at her, and that she will not be looking at him. He lasts a bit longer this time before the seatbelt turns into restraints and he has to eject, forcefully, from the claustrophobic cockpit. He is aware enough to flip his palm down this time, and she is _gone_ just as quickly as she arrived.

Poe opens his eyes, stares out at the boulders, reorients himself in time and space. A quiet sense of victory begins to hum in his veins. He turns to her. “That was longer than the first time, wasn’t it?”

Rey nods.

An unexpected grin cracks Poe’s face open. “I’m going to get the hang of this, aren’t I?”

Rey laughs, bright and joyous, and he sees a flash of aching relief in her eyes. “Yes, Poe. Yes. You will.”

 

He’s _exhausted_ by the time they start the trek back, hiking carefully down the dusky trail. But he hasn’t felt this powerful since he won his first holosim battle. Since the first time he took down a real First Order ship . Since he figured out how to disengage the anchor line on their stolen TIE-fighter and he and Finn roared out into the freedom of space.

“Tomorrow,” is all he says when they get back to the base. Rey looks up at him, face lit with yellow by the hangar lights. She grins, elated, and gives him a high-five. He laughs and heads down to his room, completely wiped, not sure whether he has been wiped of energy or wiped clean with hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and concrits please! Thanks for all your kind notes on my last works. Love you guys. 
> 
> And by all means, check out the rest of the series!


	2. and he'll be damned if he gives in without a fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, friends! Thanks for all your kind notes on my last works.

“Poe, I had an idea.”

Poe tightens the screw one last time to secure it, then turns slowly towards Jessika. “Am I going to like it?” he asks, wary.

“No.” Jessika laughs at his expression, dances back a step to be out of range of his wrench.

“Spit it out,” he sighs.

Jessika hesitates. This entirely uncharacteristic pause strikes Poe with a momentary dart of unease. “Pava,” he orders.

Jessika spreads her hands appeasingly. “It’s a really bad idea, ok? You can feel free to forget it entirely, put me on scrub-up for a day, whatever you want. I promise I won’t mention it again.”

“Pava, in ten seconds, I will—”

“So remember that time when I came up behind you to tell you we had to suit up and go fight on Takodana but you didn’t hear me over the welder so I grabbed your wrist and you threw me into the side of your X-wing?” Jessika pauses for breath. Poe stares at her, body entirely still.

“Yes,” he says reluctantly. He’s not sure where this conversation is headed, but he has a pretty good idea it won’t end well. “I apologized for that, Jessika, and I can apologize again if you want me to, but—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just that I’ve been thinking.”

“Thought I told you not to.”

Jessika laughs. “This is the Resistance, remember? We think for ourselves around here.”

“So…”

Jessika takes a deep breath and plunges in. “It’s just that it seems like a dangerous weakness, especially now that Kylo’s—” she ignores the way Poe’s eyes flicker at the name “seen the way you panic, even before they lay a hand on you, and—” Poe’s body is rigid before her, now, but she’s in too deep to stop now, so “I just think it would be a good idea to work on that. The physical side, I mean. I know you’ve been working on the Force thing with Rey, and that’s great, she’s brilliant, but—” She looks up at him, stares him down in the dim yellow light of the hangar bay. “You’re the fearless Poe Dameron, right? Best fucking pilot in the Resistance? I know you can do this, Poe. The same way you’re making progress with Rey.”

Poe’s eyes are blank, scary. Jessika stands at attention before him, waits. Finally Poe blinks and looks at her. “Thank you for your input, Pava.”

Jessika salutes, pivots on her heel to leave. Two steps out, she turns back, finds him still staring emptily across the hangar. “Finn’s worried about you, ok, Poe? He asked me for advice. That’s why I’m suggesting it. You don’t have to do anything. I won’t mention it again, and I won’t tell Finn I said anything. I just— it hurts us to see you hurting, Poe, ok? Just think about it. Please.”

Poe’s fist clenches on the wrench. He nods. Jessika salutes again and leaves, her flight boots clicking smartly on the cold hangar floor. Poe stares at the wrench in his hand for a long time. Finally he places it gently back in his toolbox, closes the lid, slides it back into his X-wing, leans his head against the engine, and sighs.

 

 

He has a pair of handcuffs in the belly of his X-wing. They are neither new nor shiny, but Resistance equipment never is, not with their budget. They have never been used, and he’s not even sure what they’re kept for. The Resistance does not believe in torture, nor does the First Order believe in ransoming hostages, so there’s not really any point. But it’s regulation orders to keep a pair on hand, just in case. Apart for the thorough weekly cleanings he demands of himself and all of his pilots, he never sees them.

He still doesn’t see them now, staring up at the ceiling of his bunk deep in the night, but he thinks about them.

 

 

Finn has not said a word to him about the tension in his body, the strain in his eyes, the slump in his shoulders. When Poe wakes in the night, gasping and shivering, Finn strokes the sweat off his brow, holds him closer, kisses the back of his neck.

They’ve given up on him, Poe thinks. They’ve decided that this is the new Poe. And it is, he knows— everyone has battle scars.

But he’ll be damned if he gives in without a fight. He closes his eyes and sinks back against Finn, taking comfort in his lover’s warm strength. Rey has been gone for a few days now, and is not expected back for another two weeks, at least, searching with Luke for a child rumored to be Force-sensitive. He’s glad of the break, glad to have a few days to gather his strength before he allows her to speak to him inside his mind. But when he tells his pilots to take a break from flight drills for a day, he expects them to use the extra time to train at running or sparring instead.

It’s time he does the same.

 

 

Poe starts just by holding them, turning them over and over in his hands, inspecting the fine lines of solder that hold them together. Finn is out practicing on the holosim. Poe knows that means it will be a few hours at least until he returns, having trained to the point of exhaustion. One thing is for sure: Finn never does anything by halves. His squadron is convinced that’s why they fit so well together.

He focuses on that thought until his breathing is calm. Finn, in the holosim, training his hands to guide metal through space. Poe, in his chair, retraining his mind to not panic at the thought of being trapped, restrained, captive.

He opens one cuff, attaches it to the arm of the chair. Opens the other— and just looks at it for a moment, extended silver claw reflecting the ceiling lights. He grips the key tightly in his other hand, takes a deep breath, and closes the cuff around his wrist.

For a moment the world swoops around him and he regrets doing this alone, trapped in his bunk, with no one to shake him back to himself or unlock the cuff if he gets paralyzed with panic. _Breathe, Poe. Fucking breathe! Bunk. Chair. Door. Floor. Ceiling. Walls— nope, not walls. Bed. Yes._ Poe closes his eyes, feels Finn’s hands holding tightly to his hips, mouth hot and wet around his cock. _Yes._ Poe snorts a laugh, feels himself grounded back in his body. Carefully he opens his eyes, looks down at his wrist. A silver cuff encircles it, bright against the scars that remain, faint trenchmarks across his wrists. Cautiously he moves, feels it press against his skin, counts his breath in, and out. He is Poe Dameron. Best fucking pilot in the Resistance. Why? Because he trains hard, works hard, fights hard. Fucks hard, at least when Finn wants him to. He's not quite sure what that has to do the rest of it, but he's sure it's connected somehow.

He's back in himself now, counting his breaths. He moves his hand in the cuff again, feels the cold metal against his wrist, feels where the free movement of his arm forcibly stops. Strains against the chair, blanks out for a moment, returns with a gasp. The back of his shirt is soaked with sweat. He closes his eyes again, leans back in the chair, sinks into hyperspace. He is calm, quiet, breathing, the door slams opens behind his back with a metallic _clang_ , Poe turns to see who it is, startled, booted footsteps approach, he is trapped in the bowels of the enemy, a black-gloved hand reaches into his mind with marauding greed, _Poe, Poe_ , _POE!_   _Breathe, Poe! You're safe! You're in your bunk! You're free! You're also a fucking idiotic nerfherding moof-milker to be doing this, I don't even know what you were thinking, or if you were thinking, but you're ok, everything’s ok, please breathe, Poe—_

Poe opens his eyes with a choked gasp, closes them again, breathes in, out, sucks in air like he has been drowning. He feels the ragged shudder of air in his throat, groans softly. He opens his eyes again.

Finn is crouching in front of him, a few feet away— safely out of reach, ever since that time Poe blackened his eye before coming out of the attack. His face is a hilarious cross between stricken, concerned, and _you are the worst fucking idiot in the Resistance._ Poe would laugh, but he’s not quite sure he can spare the oxygen yet.

“Poe, what the _fuck_ are you doing?” Finn growls at him. It’s one of only a few times he has seen Finn truly angry, but he’s still a little too dazed to do anything about it.

“I did it,” Poe pants. “I did it.”

“Did what, you fucking nerfherder! Gave yourself your fourteenth panic attack in six days?”

“Fifteenth,” Poe gasps. “You missed the one a few minutes ago.”

“Poe, I swear to—”

“But I did it, Finn.” He has to make Finn understand. “I did it. I don’t really know how long it was, but I did it, I sat here with one hand cuffed and survived. Next time I’ll last longer. And then I’ll last with both hands cuffed. And then I won’t be helpless next time. I’ll be able to think, to function—”

“And what fucking good do you think that will do against the entire FIRST ORDER, POE, YOU MASOCHISTIC MOOF-MILKING IDIOT!”

Poe laughs. He can’t help it, he’s dizzy with victory and Finn’s standing there with the most marvelously furious face he’s ever made and all Poe can think of is kissing him, biting his neck until the snarl slips off his face and he makes that low moan, the moan that sends Poe—

“Poe. Drop out of hyperspace, Poe! I need you to focus, here!”

Poe scrubs his face one-handed, forces himself to sober up. The cuff. It will help to get out of the cuff. Clumsily he unlocks himself, rubs his wrist to reassure himself that he is really free and safe. He can’t help the gusty sigh of relief that slips out without his permission, the way his back slumps against the chair at the sudden lack of tension. So much for his bravado.

“Finn.” He runs a hand through his hair, focuses on Finn. Now he can see the rim of white around his eyes, the tense line his jaw makes when he’s scared— when he’s completely terrified, in fact. Poe reaches out a hand. Finn hesitates, then takes it, sits on the bed, watches Poe. “Finn. You have to understand.” Poe leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. “The way I panicked, back there. It can’t happen again. _Ever_ . Next time there may not be a Rey with a tricky little plan, might not even be you willing to take off your helmet. They know I’m valuable, and now they know that I panic in restraints. If it happens again I’ll have no defenses. I’ll spill everything. They’ll kill you all. I have to get over this, Finn, do you understand? I _have to_. The psytechs said that if I’m just exposed to whatever scares me, bit by bit, more and more, I’ll eventually get over it. I don’t—” He swallows. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ok with being restrained, or with the Force. But as long as I can function, I’ll at least have a chance. Of escaping, of dying before they can take any secrets” —Finn’s hand clenches convulsively around Poe’s at that one— “Or, you know, surviving until you come after me to yell at me and tell me I’m a— what was it? Moof-milker? Oh, and masochistic was in there too, I remember that one.” Poe cocks his head, concedes with a grin. “That one I deserved.”

Finn waits for a moment. “Poe. Are you done talking now?”

Poe thinks for a moment. “I’ll try to be.”

The edges of Finn’s frown wobble upwards before he can force them back down again into a proper scowl. “Look, Poe—” Finn traces the lines on Poe’s hand, heaves a sigh of defeat. “I get that. I don’t like it, and I think it’s stupid to think that anything can possibly get you out of the hands of the First Order, short of sheer dumb luck or a defecting stormtrooper, but I think I understand.” He shakes his head. “Masochistic— there’s nothing I can do about that. From what your squadron says, it sounds like you’ve always been hardwired that way. But the moof-milking? And the idiot?” Finn looks up at Poe, eyes fierce. “You deserved those too. What the _fuck_ were you thinking doing this alone? You could have been—”

“But I _wasn’t_. I was _fine_ , Finn—”

“Not when I walked in, you weren’t—”

“That’s because you startled me! I was doing just fine up until then. You slammed the door, I guess? I remember some kind of noise, I think, and I turned to see what it was, but I couldn’t move all the way, so I lost it a bit.”

Finn’s eyes are deadly. Poe amends his statement. “Ok, a little more than a bit, I get that, but still, nothing worse than I’ve had before. They pass, Finn. They hurt like hell and they scare the mynock shit out of me, but they _pass_. I’m stronger now, Finn, I—” Finn’s eyes are approaching Death Star-worthy firepower. “I’m not going to do that alone again.”

Finn raises one eyebrow.

Poe sighs and raises his other hand. “I swear it, Finn. I won’t. Not without you or Rey to babysit.” He brings Finn’s hand to his lips, kisses it, sighs. “I’m sorry, Finn,” he says at last, voice low. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You didn’t scare me, I was just pissed that you—”

“Finn.”

Finn’s mouth twists. He concedes the point.

They are quiet for a moment.

“I hate seeing you like that, Poe,” Finn whispers, voice cracking. He shakes his head, over and over again. “I hate it.”

Poe leans forward, cups Finn’s cheek in his hand. “I’m gonna be ok, Finn.” He’s not quite which of them he’s trying to convince. “I’m gonna be ok.”

Finn stares past Poe, finally drags his eyes back to his lover’s face. The blank stare of Poe’s panicked eyes, the awful sound of Poe gasping helplessly for air, the haunting fear of someday hearing that Poe will never return—Finn grabs Poe’s neck hungrily, draws him closer, kisses him with desperate urgency. Poe kisses him back, tackles him onto the bed, grounds himself in Finn’s fierce love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and concrits are always heartily welcomed! 
> 
> And if you like what you see, feel free to check out the rest of the series! There's smut, adventure, love, feelings...ok, lots of feelings. 
> 
> Love you all! <3


End file.
